


our limbs and hinges rust into the sea

by amorias



Category: Ookiku Furikabutte | Big Windup!
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Future Fic, M/M, Rejection, Sexual Themes, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:03:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorias/pseuds/amorias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanai is head over heels in love with a girl, and Tajima realizes that he just needs to grow up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our limbs and hinges rust into the sea

 She's pretty, with dark brown hair and light eyes and just the slightest dusting of freckles across her nose, and she's smart and witty and sly and perfect.

When Hanai talks about her, that's what he says. She's just so _damn_ perfect, and Tajima can see in his eyes how he feels about Katsumi Sasaki.

She's from Hokkaido and came all the way down to Tokyo to attend university here to become an English teacher, and she loves baseball, and she was the top of her class in high school and the manager for her baseball club, and that's why she comes to all of the games--

It makes Tajima sick to think of all the things he knows second-hand about her.

 

Tajima's stomach turns when she leans against him and Hanai smiles down at her, eyes soft like they never were with him. He coughs loudly and slurps up the last of his soda because, hey, I'm here too, pay attention to me, Azusa.

The couple exchanges glances before Katsumi straightens up. “Tajima-kun, how is your girlfriend?” she asks, smiling at him across the table.

He turns away, dismissively running his tongue across his teeth. “Dunno. We broke up.”

She gets a strange look on her face, and Hanai stares at him incredulously.

“What is that now, the fifth one this month?”

Tajima restrains the urge to flip the table over, instead fiddling with his straw, hand on his cheek and voice forcibly measured.

“Guess so.”

 

Tajima's new girl's name is Hikari Suzuki.

They're in the same math class; the only difference is that she's the one answering all the questions right while Tajima's getting Fs on all his tests. He grimaces, shoving the paper into his bag before anyone can see the circled 23 written in red on the top of it. He leans his head in his hand, closing his eyes and allowing himself to be disappointed at his own stupidity for once. Hanai had always made time before for Tajima, to help him with his homework and prevent him from failing – it'd been that way since high school.

He can feel the muscles in his neck tighten when he thinks about the reason Hanai doesn't have time for him anymore. As he opens his eyes, his view falls on Hikari, and she tucks a curtain of dark hair behind her ear, and he figures it's worth a shot.

The first night after they go out, Tajima brings her back to the apartment he shares with Hanai.

An hour later, Hanai is pounding on the wall connecting their rooms and yelling at them to shut the fuck up because _some_ people have class at 8 in the morning.

Three days later, they're broken up as Tajima fails another math test.

 

“I'm gonna go pick up Misaki,” Tajima says as he grabs his keys, not daring to look at Hanai and Katsumi sitting on the couch. He doesn't want Hanai to see him scowling like he is.

“Misaki? What happened to Hikari?” He asks, trying and failing not to look disappointed in his roommate.

“Didn't work out,” the third baseman says carelessly, waving a dismissive hand as he closes the door behind him.

Misaki Sato is in Tajima's Japanese history class. She wears white-rimmed, square glasses and rarely talks, but Tajima had seen her around their baseball games every now and again, standing at the fence away from the stands. He engaged her in conversation, in which she was totally star-struck by being talked to the hotshot third baseman, and he asked her out just as Katsumi pulled Hanai down for a kiss to celebrate their win.

They go to a cheap ramen place a short drive from campus that he and Hanai discovered, letting the music from his car stereo fill up the empty conversation.

“So... you still live on campus?”

Misaki nods, trying to delicately eat the egg out of her ramen.

Tajima casts a disinterested glance out the window. “And... how's that...”

“It's nice, I guess, I mean... it's not bad!” She lets out a nervous kind of laugh, and he gives her some kind of reassuring smile that he has to force onto his lips. Not like she'd know the difference, anyway. He taps his fingers against the table. Damn it, he's supposed to be good with people, he always had more friends than Hanai and more girls who wanted to date him and he absolutely brimmed with confidence.

He's always supposed to know what to say.

“Cool.”

That's what he comes up with.

“How was your date?” Hanai asks, only moving his eyes to look up at Tajima so he doesn't disturb his sleeping girlfriend. Tajima's eyes fixate on the way the right fielder's thumb rubs along her forearm.

“Fantastic.”

 

After Misaki, it's a series of one night stands, and Tajima fucks them good enough to make them scream, even as he so desperately wishes that it was someone else laying beneath him and panting out his name. He closes his eyes and makes sure he doesn't say that person's girly-sounding name instead.

 

“So, what do you think?”

Tajima stares at the understated ring in the understated black box that Hanai holds in his hand as he fidgets and blushes red.

“For...” The third baseman trails off, wishing he could finish his sentence without wanting to destroy every item in their apartment.

“Katsumi, yeah.”

Tajima continues to look, his eyes glued to the damn ring. He feels his chest tightening in some kind of anger, but he can't tell if it's at Hanai or himself--

“Is she gonna like it?” He shrugs as nonchalantly as is possible, and he runs his tongue over his teeth. He doesn't try to hide the malice in his voice. “I mean, have you guys even talked about it, yet?”

Hanai raises his eyebrows, snapping the box shut and putting it back in his pocket.

“I mean... no... but we've been together for awhile now, so--”

“If you think she'll say yes, then by all means, go for it!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, Yuuichirou?” Hanai says incredulously, his voice starting out low and getting progressively angrier. “Can't you just be happy for me? You are such a child--”

Tajima sucks in a shaky breath, biting back tears.

“Do whatever you want, Azusa.”

He storms out of the room, knowing what a child he really is.

 

Hanai drops his keys on the counter, slowly, wordlessly sitting down next to Tajima on the couch. Tajima refuses to look at him, staring steadfastly at the game on TV, the beer can in his hand slowly compressing. From his peripheral, he can tell that the right fielder is sitting with his back up against the sofa, hands tucked into his lap, lips only slightly parted as if he's going to say something but not a word comes out.

The freckled boy sighs. He knows he's going to have to be the one to apologize, because it is his fault after all, but he's not really big on the apologizing game, so he gets up instead and smiles at Hanai. “Want a beer, Azusa?”

“She said no.”

He blinks, the smile slowly falling from his lips--

“What?”

Hanai's voice is misty and far away, like it's all a dream. His eyes don't leave the crack in the wall straight in front of him.

“She said she wouldn't marry me.”

Tajima resists the urge to ask “what” again, his crumpled, empty can slipping from his grasp. He swears and crouches down to pick it up, trying to think of something to say.

“How?” Is all he's able come up with, setting the can on the coffee table and watching Hanai carefully. Tajima doesn't like the feeling that arises in his chest as the other boy distantly explains what happened, how he asked her as carefully as possible and she said no, and how he watched her perfect hair and her perfect face and her perfect everything walk away from him, and how he's not even sure if he would be able to cry because he's pretty sure he just had an out of body experience with the whole thing.

Maybe it didn't even happen, is the last thing Hanai says before the lump in his throat takes hold and causes his voice to give out, and he finally snaps and buries his face in his hands and cries from the pain in his chest, and Tajima hates himself for the soaring feeling he has in his heart as Hanai's tears stain his shirt.

 

They go to a crappy bar near their apartment, because Tajima has the ridiculous idea that getting drunk would make Hanai instantly feel better. They used to go there much more often when they were underclassmen – now that they're fourth years, it's just harder to find the time. They order two beers but neither of them drink, instead just staring at the trickles of liquid that start to stream down the sides.

“I should've listened to you,” Hanai says finally, tips of his fingers running along his glass. “You knew somehow that she would say no.”

“No I didn't,” Tajima responds, his voice barely a whisper. He stares at the head of his beer, the crappy music and miscellaneous bar sounds muffling his thoughts. “Azusa, I think I should talk to you aboutsomething.”

“Look, you don't.... you don't need to apologize, alright, Yuuichirou?” Hanai's voice is almost wistful, and he has a vacant kind of smile on his face. “No hard feelings. You were right.”

The freckled boy sits up straighter. “No, that's not it--”

“Thanks for being there for me.” The right fielder pushes his stool back and presses some money into the wood of the bar. There's the softness in his eyes, again, and Tajima feels his chance slipping away.

“No, wait--”

“You're really my best friend, you know?”

Hanai smiles half-heartedly, resting his hand against the third baseman's shoulder for only a moment before saying that he'd see him back at the apartment and shoving his hands in his jacket pockets, back slipping into shadow as he leaves the dive bar.

Tajima watches him go, lips left parted and stomach knotted, and he feels like a child all over again.

 


End file.
